Saturday, September 13, 2008

Why do we need to stop talking about Sarah Palin? Because she is a distraction, meant to divert our focus from what's really going on with the Presidential Campaign. Don't get me wrong, all of the debates about Governor Palin's feminism, or lack thereof, and whether or not she's pro-woman (hint: the answer is no) were and are imminently valuable, but I think it's time we move on and think about the larger picture, too.

What else is there to talk about, you say?

John McCain has been leading a campaign of lies and smears, and the general (Democratic) public has been so caught up with Governor Palin that they've only just started to notice. Finally, the MSM are beginning to address the outright dishonesty of the McCain-Palin campaign, starting with their specious co-option of feminism and ripping-off Obama's slogan "change we can believe in" to his egregiously false attack ads:

I was certainly glad to see that the women of The View, which--I'll be honest--is not a show I usually watch or spend much time thinking about, ripped a strip off McCain yesterday, grilling him on everything from his changing stance on abortion and his choice of Governor Palin to his attack ads (make sure to watch the clips embedded in the linked article).

I hope people are finally getting their heads out of the clouds (I was going to say "out of Sarah Palin's ass," but figured that might be inappropriate. Of course, I just said it anyway.) and realizing that Sarah Palin has a running mate. In fact, she is the running mate to someone who is a serious threat and who could, in fact, be president if we're not careful. And, unless McCain dies in office immediately, his actions are what we'll have to worry about, not (necessarily) those of Governor Palin.

That said, while it's important for women (and men) to continue to take a stand against Governor Palin's anti-womanism, I think Democrats should put most of their energy behind rallying for Obama-Biden. Join your local campaign headquarters, go door-to-door, donate money if you can, register to vote, make sure everyone you know has registered to vote, put a sign on your lawn, put a sticker on your car. Isn't it more valuable to show support for our candidates instead of trying to undermine our opponents (even if they deserve it)? Or, as Cara at The Curvature has pointed out, isn't optimism a stronger force than pessimism?

Note: When I say "we" don't assume that I'm talking about anyone specific. I'm not. I'm mostly addressing myself (since I have been writing and talking about Palin as much, if not more, than others in the blogosphere) and anyone else like me who has suddenly realized that all their energy has been going into discrediting Governor Palin when it should have been directed towards supporting the Democrats.

2 comments:

I totally agree that I'm pretty sick of her already. Over the last 2 weeks, so much has been written about lies, damn lies, and about an RNC co-option of feminism and claiming sexism, that I'm just done. The evidence is clearly there.

I will continue, when I get caught up in my new teaching job, with critiquing individual sexist bullshit, but as far as the "big picture" debate goes, to me it's been clearly game, set, match...bullshit!